CAPE TOWN, 15 jun: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected by lawmakers for a second term on Friday, after his party struck a dramatic late coalition deal with a former political foe just hours before the vote.
\nRamaphosa, the leader of the African National Congress, won convincingly in Parliament against a surprise candidate who was also nominated \u2014 Julius Malema of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. Ramaphosa received 283 votes to Malema\u2019s 44 in the 400-member house.
\nThe 71-year-old Ramaphosa secured his second term with the help of lawmakers from the country\u2019s second biggest party, the Democratic Alliance, and some smaller parties. They backed him in the vote and got him over the finish line following the ANC\u2019s loss of its long-held majority in a landmark election two weeks ago that reduced it to 159 seats in Parliament.
\nDuring a break in what turned out to be a marathon parliamentary session, the ANC signed the last-minute agreement with the DA, effectively ensuring Ramaphosa stays on as the leader of Africa\u2019s most industrialized economy. The parties will now co-govern South Africa in its first national coalition where no party has a majority in Parliament.
\nThe deal, referred to as a government of national unity, brings the ANC together with the DA, a white-led party that had for years been the main opposition and the fiercest critic of the ANC. At least two other smaller parties also joined the agreement.
\nRamaphose called the deal \u2014 which sent South Africa into uncharted waters \u2014 a \u201cnew birth, a new era for our country\u201d and said it was time for parties \u201cto overcome their differences and to work together.\u201d
\n\u201cThis is what we shall do and this is what I am committed to achieve as the president,\u201d he said.
\nThe ANC \u2014 the famed party of Nelson Mandela \u2014 had ruled South Africa with a comfortable majority since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.
\nBut it lost its 30-year majority in the humbling national election on May 29, a turning point for the country. The vote was held against the backdrop of widespread discontent from South Africans over high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment.
\nAnalysts warn there might be complications ahead, though, given the starkly different ideologies of the ANC, a former liberation movement, and the centrist, business-friendly DA, which won 21% of the vote in the national election, the second largest share behind the ANC\u2019s 40%.
\nFor one, the DA disagreed with the ANC government\u2019s move to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza in a highly sensitive case at the United Nations\u2019 top court.
\nThe DA leader John Steenhuisen was the first to confirm the agreement.
\n\u201cFrom today, the DA will co-govern the Republic of South Africa in a spirit of unity and collaboration,\u201d he said as he stepped away from Friday\u2019s proceedings for a speech carried live on television in which he said a deal was signed and that the DA lawmakers would vote for Ramaphosa for president.
\nThe Parliament session started at 10 a.m. in the unusual setting of a conference center near Cape Town\u2019s waterfront, after the city\u2019s historic National Assembly building was gutted in a fire in 2022. The house first went through the hourslong swearing-in of hundreds of new lawmakers and electing a speaker and a deputy speaker.
\nThe vote for president started late at night, with the results announced well after 10 p.m. Ramaphosa finished his acceptance speech as the clock ticked past midnight and into Saturday.
\nFormer President Jacob Zuma\u2019s MK Party boycotted the session but that did not affect the voting as only a third of the house is needed for a quorum.
\nANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said the party was open to talking with anyone else who wanted to join the unity government. There are 18 political parties represented in Parliament and he said the multi-party agreement would \u201cprioritize the country across the political and ideological divide.\u201d
\nSome parties, including Malema\u2019s EFF, refused to join.
\nThe two other parties that joined the coalition deal were the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Patriotic Alliance, which has drawn attention partly because its leader, Gayton McKenzie, served a prison sentence for bank robbery.
\nMcKenzie said he had been given a second chance in life and that South Africa also had one now, a chance to solve its deep socioeconomic problems.
\nThe ANC had faced a deadline to strike a coalition agreement as Parliament had to vote for the president within 14 days after election results were declared on June 2. The ANC had been trying to strike a coalition agreement for two weeks and the final negotiations went on overnight Thursday to Friday, party officials said.
\nSouth Africa has not faced that level of political uncertainty since the ANC swept to power in the 1994 first all-race election that ended nearly a half-century of racial segregation. Since then, every South African leader has come from the ANC, starting with Mandela. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CAPE TOWN, 15 jun: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected by lawmakers for a second term on Friday, after his party struck a dramatic late coalition deal with a former political foe just hours before the vote. Ramaphosa, the leader of the African National Congress, won convincingly in Parliament against a surprise candidate who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-242262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}